BASEBALL

BASEBALL; With 3 Swings, Sluggers Trade Lead in Homers

By IRA BERKOW

Published: August 20, 1998

CHICAGO, Aug. 19—
The chase to surpass the home run record in baseball, perhaps the most storied record in American sports, took a dramatic turn this sun-sweet afternoon in Wrigley Field. Three dramatic turns, in fact, as the Chicago Cubs' Sammy Sosa grabbed the major league home run lead from the St. Louis Cardinals' Mark McGwire, only to see McGwire grab it right back.

When Sosa, the Cubs' galvanic outfielder, lined a home run into the left-field bleachers in the fifth inning, it gave him 48 for the season, one more than McGwire, the Cardinals' massive first baseman, who had led the assault on Roger Maris's record of 61 homers since the season began.

Sosa was ahead in the race for the first time all season, and as he ran past McGwire, who was standing impassively by first base, and completed his home run trot, many in the crowd of 39,689 jammed into Wrigley Field launched into a roaring ''Sammy, Sammy'' chant.

As, of course, is McGwire, who over the next five innings answered not once but twice. He sent one baseball clear out of Wrigley Field in the eighth inning to tie the game, and another into the center-field bleachers in the 10th inning to reclaim the home run lead with 49 and, for good measure, lead his team to an 8-6 victory.

Before today's game, McGwire was on pace to hit 62 home runs this season and break the record Maris set in 1961, and Sosa was on a pace to tie Maris with 61. After it, McGwire was on pace for 64 home runs and Sosa for 62.

With their head-to-head battle finished, McGwire will go on to face the Mets in a two-day, four-game series at Shea Stadium -- a pair of doubleheaders on Thursday and Friday. Sosa's Cubs, who are battling the Mets for the National League's wild-card playoff berth, next face the San Francisco Giants.

Sosa's lead in the home run race was short-lived today. McGwire gave the sellout crowd a charge when he not only homered in the eighth off Matt Karchner to tie Sosa, but also hit the ball farther than Sosa had, knocking it over the left-field bleachers and onto Waveland Avenue. And he tied the score at 6-6, to boot.

That was not enough. In the 10th inning, he lined a shot off Terry Mulholland that just cleared the wall in center field, 400 feet from home plate, giving him the homer lead again at 49.

It also gave the Cardinals the lead in the ball game, one they did not relinquish.

McGwire's and Sosa's dual pursuit of the home run record has been one of the better shows in sports in some time, and the fans responded to it, and to the protagonists, often and loudly.

Of course, they came to this exquisite old ball park in anticipation of such fireworks, and of the possibility of watching history in the making, or on the road to being made.

With 36 games left on the Cubs' regular-season schedule, and 38 left for the Cards, the drama heightened.

But McGwire and Sosa were surely very much aware already of what the home runs meant. The national news media has been dogging their steps for several months now, not letting them forget, as they have seemed to match each other homer for homer.

In the third inning, Sosa lined a shot to left field that looked like a home run to almost everyone in the park, including Sosa. He observed it admiringly on his jog to first base. Alas, the ball hit about three feet from the top of the wall. The Cardinals' John Mabry fielded it, whirled and threw cleanly to second base, where Sosa, who had realized too late that he had better start running, was out by so large a margin he did not even attempt a slide.

When Sosa did hit it out of the park, off St. Louis's starting pitcher, Kent Bottenfield, his second home run trot of the game was far more effective. When Sosa returned to the dugout he was cheered so enthusiastically that he emerged for a curtain call. He waved his cap, then retreated onto the bench, where he celebrated by pouring a cup of water over his sweaty head.

McGwire came to bat in the next inning, the sixth, exciting the multitude ever more. Could McGwire answer blow for blow? The crowd treated him to a loud mixed bag of cheers, boos and whistles.

The Cardinals, behind by 6-2, had loaded the bases with two outs. The Cubs' manager, Jim Riggleman, replaced his starter, Mark Clark, with a right-handed reliever, Terry Adams. When Adams got a called strike on McGwire, the fans cheered. But a passed ball with the count at 2-2 allowed in a run, sent the other runners to second and third and left first base open. Adams walked McGwire, which was a sensible thing to do under the circumstances. Still, the boos cascaded from the stands.

The game began for the sluggers with McGwire hitting a towering fly ball to left field, which Henry Rodriguez caught with his back against the ivied wall. Sosa struck out looking in his first at-bat. In the third inning, McGwire popped out to third base.

When McGwire was walked for the first time, on a 3-2 pitch in the fifth inning, boos rang from some precincts of Wrigley Field. Fans want to see the march to history, and feel deprived when the slugger is not permitted to swing -- sluggers, actually, because when Sosa and Seattle's Ken Griffey Jr. (42 homers before last night's game with Toronto), the other main contenders for the record, are walked in enemy ball parks, the home-team pitchers are routinely being booed.

St. Louis's Rich Croushore got the same medicine when he walked Sosa in the seventh inning.

What did McGwire and Sosa talk about on first base? ''We talked about building a golf course together,'' McGwire said with a smile.

Sosa is equally coy about what the homer record means to him. ''Our team is in the middle of a pennant race,'' Sosa said. ''If we won and I didn't hit a home run, I would be more satisfied than I am now.''

And what was Sosa thinking in right field when McGwire passed him with his 49th home run? ''I'm thinking, 'He's the man,' '' said Sosa, who has said for months that he was rooting for McGwire to break the record.

In the first game of the series the night before, Sosa and McGwire had collectively been 0 for 9 and struck out six times; today they were 4 for 8. Perhaps a little breeze toward the outfield did not hurt, and maybe some of the pressure was off just a bit after the night before.

Today's game itself was a thrilling one, with the Cubs loading the bases in the bottom of the 10th before Manny Alexander popped out to second base to end the game and give the Cardinals the triumph.

For the Cardinals, who are out of the pennant race, knocking off the Cubs, a wild-card contender, was pleasurable, as was sharing McGwire's return to the lead in the homer race.

For the sake of comprehensiveness, it should be noted that home runs were also hit in the game by four other players: Henry Rodriguez and Jose Hernandez, both of the Cubs, and Delino DeShields and Ray Lankford of the Cardinals. But no one is paying much attention to that.

Photos: Chicago's Sammy Sosa, left, struck first yesterday, belting his 48th homer in the fifth inning. But St. Louis's Mark McGwire followed with his 48th and 49th, right, to retake the major league home run lead. (Photographs by Reuters)(pg. C4) Photos/Chart: Sammy Sosa 5th inning He passes Mark McGwire in the home run race with a two-run, two-out blast to left field. SOSA 48 - McGWIRE 47 Mark McGwire 8th inning His solo home run to left caps a Cardinals comeback to tie the score, 6-6. SOSA 48 - McGWIRE 48 McGwire 10th inning His extra-inning solo homer to center field helps beat the Cubs, 8-6. SOSA 48 - McGWIRE 49 (Photographs by Associated Press)(pg. A1)